[Incoming artillery buggy at 4 o clock.] One of the Androids reported as it turned to engage the new enemy.
Max and Nico had begun to lead their team away from the ship two hours ago, and they had only made it three kilometres in the constant swarm of enemies that they were facing.
It was as if everything that they met instantly recognized them as the apex predator of the region, and they were all teaming up to try to stop them before the Mecha squad had a chance to run amok among the rest of the military forces.
Their sensors had detected another spatial explosion in the distance, the same as the first two, and it was roughly centred on another Golden Legion city.
They had enough of a signal that it was certain this time that the Android Fleet was actively bombing them with Antimatter munitions, and that space was becoming very unstable after the third portal in such a short period of time had been collapsed with the volatile munitions.
Within the hour, leaving from here to go straight home was no longer going to be an option, but so far, the team on board the Cutter had not found any hints as to how they might accomplish the task within the limitations of this space.
[Incoming Bloody Warriors.] Nico happily announced, with an accompanying ping on the map to point them out.
They didn't quite have units comparable to Mecha, but the warriors from this drop had some giant arachnid styled war walkers that were piloted by two soldiers, and they were brutally capable in melee, while lacking in the ranged combat department.
That was a common theme with the blood soaked warriors. They favoured melee above all else, and they had dozens of ways to get there, but their ranged heavy weaponry was nearly nonexistent.
[Eyes forward everyone. The buggies can be dealt with by the rear guard, let's take out the heavy equipment first.] Max ordered.
The warriors began to charge, under covering fire from the plasma cannons that were mounted to the arachnid walkers that were quickly overtaking them.
The fact that they were the unit's only fire support didn't appear to matter to them at all, as the constructs raced forward to engage the Mecha. All that ever seemed to matter to these warriors was combat.
Max set his Disintegrator to minimal output and let it auto-calibrate to the armour of the warriors he would be targeting, then began to fire. The resulting miniature nuclear explosions rocked the ground, throwing some of the weaker fighters to the ground, and filled the air with mushroom clouds.
That would naturally bring even more warriors to them, but the whole point of this expedition was to kill anything stupid or hostile enough to be a threat. Only once there was nothing left to shoot at would they be safe to start modifying the Cutter so they could get out of here, but the risk of causing a chain reaction that would ripple through this strange world or make the atmosphere toxic was still a concern.
They weren't trying to turn the whole world against them. That would waste far too much time, and Max couldn't help but worry that the continued efforts to break through in that remote part of space was actually a diversion from something more important.
What that could be, he didn't know. But both the Arisen and the Darklings had been fairly adamant that he should be the one taking care of the issues here, so there was a good chance that they knew more about what was going on than he did.
If it was just that they knew this Greater Energy Being wasn't openly hostile to the humans and wanted to see Max's reaction, that was a wholly different issue than if they knew something about the force that was coming through the portals. Even after fighting them for hours, Max knew very little about them, other than that they seemed to follow the same traditions as the others that kept their armour covered in the blood of their enemies.
That was about all they had in common, though. The warriors in this group were larger, the machines supporting them were ones that he hadn't seen before, and they also seemed to be more intelligent than the last lot.
Max used the Mass Driver to snipe a warrior who had almost sneaked up to their position.
Definitely smarter.
There was a small rocky field in front of them, where Max decided they could make a stand for the moment.
[Corvettes, move behind the rocks and take cover. Minimize your profile from outside the field. I want a full circle of coverage, and I will take the centre with Nico at my back.] He ordered.
The Mecha moved into position, and Max turned his Disintegrator toward the ground. A short burst dug a hole that was waist deep on the Titan Class Mecha, which should make them shorter than the surrounding tree line, so Max hopped in and let Nico follow him, which put the two giant Mecha back to back.
The warriors weren't stupid, they would either surround their position or focus a charge on a weak point. The circular formation didn't have any obvious weak points, unless the enemy failed to notice one of the poorly hidden Corvette Class Mecha.
The new adaptive paint was excellent at blending into the surroundings, but not good enough that it would fool sensors at this short of a range.
Max watched as the Bloody Warriors surrounded their position, keeping a distance of five hundred metres, then listened to Nico's laughter as they ushered forward a large unit of alien armoured vehicles to go before them and begin the bombardment of the field.
[Those poor idiots don't know what is about to happen to them. Their sensor systems are terrible, and they think it's only the two of us in the field.] He informed Nico and the rest of the unit.
The Androids replied in unison. [Understood, Commander. We will wait to fire until it is obvious that we have been discovered.]
